Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepageClaiming Antarctica: Oil, Water And Environmental RisksQueensland University of Technology, Science Daily
Australia and other owners of the Antarctic territories may be ill-prepared to face a major environmental challenge to the continent, according to a Queensland University of Technology academic.

QUT media and communication lecturer Dr Christy Collis said that, with its massive resources of fresh water and unknown quantities of oil, Antarctica could be ripe for exploitation once resources in the rest of the world became scarcer.

Dr Collis said this issue was particularly important for Australia as it laid claim to 42 per cent of Antarctica, giving it ownership of 10 per cent of the world's available land.

Her claims coincide with recent news that Britain is planning to claim sovereign rights over more than a million square kilometres of the territory.

Dr Collis is researching the cultural, legal and geopolitical aspects of Antarctica and said the treaty between 45 nations which governed the icy continent did not make the continent's future entirely stable or secure.
(18 October 2007)

Chile to Lay Claim to Piece of Antarctica Efe, Rigzone
Chile's foreign minister said Monday that his country will ask the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf to recognize Santiago's claim of sovereignty over a chunk of Antarctica.

Alejandro Foxley told reporters the move is in response to Britain's announced intention to assert rights over oil and gas resources in a portion of the Antarctic seabed that overlaps Chile's claim.
(22 October 2007)

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO): Index Timeline
"NATO of the East" Sarah Meyer, Index Research
...The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) was founded in 2001 by the leaders of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Other countries are clamouring to be part of this group. The SCO's member states cover an area of over 30 million km2, or about three fifths of Eurasia, with a population of 1.455 billion, about a quarter of the world's total.Its working languages are Chinese and Russian. There is a US / Russian 'special interests' tiff over Azerbaijan. "The strategic course of Eurasia and global energy reserves hangs in the balance at the Caspian Sea Summit" in Tehran.

The members of the SCO say NO to American "interests." This is unlike the Arab League, who perhaps succumb too easily to the extortions and $s in Condi's pockets on her imperial itinerary. With the resistance of Russia and China and other SCO members, has the United States met its Waterloo? Is the U.S. intentionally setting up another 'cold war' between US-NATO and the SCO? Ms. Rice said "No". Will the thrust of the destructive U.S. drive be reined in by Russia and China? Further, it doesn't take much imagination to guess which country allegedly wants Putin dead.

Most of the western Mainstream Media continue to give scant attention to the SCO. Open your eyes, corporate darlings … there is an interesting crossroad ahead! Don't get blogger-snookered as you did with Bremer's oil law. Do some proper research this time before another US disastrous war engulfs us all.
(20 October 2007)Many articles and excerpts telling the story of the SCO.

Contributor Sarah Meyer writes:
The United States started pushing for a missile shield. This upset Russia. Now there is a direct collision between NATO and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) which has strong shadows of the earlier Cold War between the US and Russia. This time, China is involved!